Students love doing morning announcements! These two announced it was a Mystical, Magical Monday!

Mr. James and Katherine are ready for the Book Fair!

Dear Wheelock Families,Thank you so much for visiting us during Parent-Teacher Conferences. I hope you found your meeting to be pleasant and informative about your student's learning. Please stay in touch with your child's classroom teacher. Don't hesitate to reach out if we may be of help.

Another highlight this week was our Literacy Night and Book Fair held at Wheelock. Thank you for coming! We all enjoyed participating in this fun event. Thanks to the PTO and Jim James of Park Street Books for their support and some great books! Thank you to our parents for all of their donations to our classrooms.

ResourcesI have many conversations with parents and sometimes they seem surprised that we have many resources to help our students in the social emotional arena. We are happy to work with outside service providers as well, if you sign permission for us to communicate with the outside physician or therapist. If your student is struggling, don't hesitate to reach out to the teacher or me. We are happy to help or facilitate a connection to our guidance counselor or psychologist. Sometimes even one conversation can be very helpful. Here are some resources that may be helpful to you. I am proud to let you know that our psychologist, Jenna Johnson's blog has been named one of the Top 10 Elementary Pyschology blogs on the web by Feedspot!!

​Mr. David Worthley is our Director of Social Emotional Learning for the district. Mr. Worthley maintains a great website, as well.

If you noticed the Flash this week, I added a short piece about kids who are different. Teaching our children to respect those with differences is very important to us at Wheelock School. In the Flash I mentioned the movie, Wonder, has come out. For the right age group, it's a tremendous opportunity to discuss topics of this nature. I also learned there is a more primary book on this topic entitled We're All Wonders by the same author, Palacio.

Reading TidbitIn my former life, I was a reading specialist so I greatly enjoy visiting the Wheelock reading room. Observing a lesson moved me to remind you that we can't take for granted that our children know the meaning of words we take for granted. Consider this, have you ever told your child that you were going to "tuck" him or her into bed? Do they know what the word tuck means? Ask you child if he or she knows what the word tuck means. It can be eye opening. Many of our kiddoes have rich experiences, yet they lack in vocabulary.

Between the ages of two and five, children learn an estimated 1500 new words every year, or about 5 words a day (Beck & McKeown, 1991). It doesn't stop there!

Research points us in the direction of natural interactions as the source of vocabulary learning. Whether through free play between peers . . . or an adult introducing literacy terms (e.g., sentence, word), as children engage in play with literacy tools, the likelihood that vocabulary will 'stick' is heightened when children's engagement and motivation for learning new words is high. Embedding new words in activities that children want to do recreates the conditions by which vocabulary learning takes place in the crib." (Justin Harris, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, "Lessons From the Crib to the Classroom: How Children Really Learn Vocabulary." Handbook of Early Literacy Research, Volume 3, ed. by Susan B. Neuman and David K. Dickinson. Guilford Press, 2011)

Next week will fly by! I wish all of our Wheelock community a safe, restful and Happy Thanksgiving!

Art ClubThank you to Mrs. Kerry Evans for running the first session of the Art Club during Wheelock's Fall after-school program. The students seemed to have a wonderful time and it was quite a success. Thank you to Kerry for volunteering to conduct this session. We are always looking for volunteers who would like to try a session on a topic of their choice. Thank you, Mrs. Evans! ​

Art Club members at work!

SEL District Task ForceKudos to Sue Cowell and Dave Worthly for a great first meeting of the task force. The district has assembled a dedicated group to begin to tackle some important issues around social emotional learning. I am so pleased to be part of the group.

Principal's CoffeeThank you to all of the Moms who came out for my first Principal's Coffee. We had a good conversation about MCAS and Parent Conferences. Some parents were interested in our new chromebooks and loved the colorful keyboard stickers. Here's the link if you want a closer look. The presentation is now posted on the school website.

Parent ConferencesThank you to all of the parents who came to visit for parent conferences! Your partnership in the education of our students is valued highly.

Literacy NightHope to see you the 15th. Literacy Night should be a fun time!

​PlayWorksOn Thursday and Friday, Dale Street and Wheelock Classroom Assistants, who work also as our recess monitors, worked with Jill Barry from PlayWorks. PlayWorks is a great organization that works with schools to create safe and fun playground environments. The staff had two half days of training followed by hands-on experiences on the playground with Jill in the afternoon. A good number of students participated in learning some new games. Ask your students if they learned any new games at recess this week. Everyone looked like they were having fun! Thank you to the staff for working with us to create a safe and enjoyable environment for our students.

Principal's CoffeeAfter rescheduling Rocky Woods due to inclement weather, it seemed like rescheduling the Principal's Coffee was also a good idea! I have rescheduled the Principal's Coffee to November 8th at 1:00pm. I will discuss MCAS results and next steps and Parent Conferences. Hope to see you.

Facebook​Are you following us on Facebook? With assistance from Kerry Cowell, we've created an elementary page which also links you to our tweets and blogs. With so many on Facebook, you may find this easier to follow with everything in one place. Enjoy and Follow Us!